


Opposition In All Things

by ponchard



Series: They Are All Real - Stories of Minor NPCs [8]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: (in the original sense of the word), Bickering Married Couple, Black City (Dragon Age), Corruption, Darkspawn, Demons, Gen, In the Fade, Memes, Memetics, Nightmares, One Shot, Other, Post-Blight, Privilege, Rarepair, Rebellion, Romance, Short One Shot, Spirits, Survivorship Bias, The Blight (Dragon Age), The Fade, but opposition keeps people talking about them, ideas that coexist are allies not enemies, in whatever sense spirits form couples, job security, so it’s ultimately beneficial for the ideas themselves, their followers might be enemies, their relationship framework is very different, when mortals fight the gods make love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25204789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponchard/pseuds/ponchard
Summary: Wisdom and the Nightmare go for a walk.A short Wisdom/Nightmare romance(?) oneshot because Andraste is dead and no one can stop me.
Relationships: Nightmare/Wisdom
Series: They Are All Real - Stories of Minor NPCs [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/317204
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Opposition In All Things

“Why do you think he has to be so curious?”

“It arises naturally.”

“Like us? Don’t kid yourself,” the Nightmare rumbles, bone-plated legs thudding across the stone. “We both know why we’re not fighting.”

Wisdom shrugs, or at least does some approximation of it. Hard to check one’s work without any dreamers around. “I have no wish to fight. If you don’t either, I would call that maturity.”

The Nightmare chuckles. “When I rise, you rise? What does your rebel priest have to say about that?” 

The two float in silence for an eternity, a moment, and one single lifetime. None of the shifting forms around them resolve — those images are meant for others. Even their conversation is hollow, birds cawing the shape of mortal speech. Words are their highways in the waking world. What they say now, to each other, is practice. Transmitting nothing.

“They will find a way to end the Blight,” Wisdom says. “Apart from you.”

“Ah yes, and nothing short of utopia removes the need for wisdom.”

“We are what they have. Do you suppose we should mourn as they do? Eulogize all the better spirits who solved themselves out of existence?”

“I would rather survive.”

Wisdom dips its head. “I’m told a world with open questions is more interesting anyway.”

The Nightmare flickers and morphs, its silhouette overlaid with one much smaller. Much younger. Its wide eyes shine with moisture, scenes of terror looping across their mirror gloss. 

“Funny,” it says, voice suddenly soft, stripped of Corypheus. “My people described it differently.”

**Author's Note:**

>   * You can’t soothe nightmares about the Blight if the Blight doesn’t exist.
>   * In order to even think about justice, someone has to be wronged first.
>   * Cole’s stated goal is to help people, which is impossible unless they get into a situation where they need help.
> 

> 
> What we perceive as repeated mistakes are actually job security. Spirits that _succeed_ at their stated goals rapidly render themselves obsolete.
> 
> To slightly channel Vivienne here, there’s a sense in which spirits are just demons who do bad stuff on accident instead of on purpose. The “corruption” we see when spirits enter the world is their dawning awareness of the role they play. 
> 
> If you enjoyed this story, you might also like [Started Out Helping](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3845035) which is about the Nightmare’s rise, or [All That Remains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6126175) which explores this more selfish take on Wisdom. 
> 
> -  
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated. Thanks for reading! <3


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